Pronouns (N, A, D, Reflexive)

Let the gossiping begin! I’m going to teach you how to talk about other people!

Below is a chart with the regular nominative case pronoun paired with its English definition:

There are a few odd things to take notice of on this chart.

1) There are 3 instances in which the proper pronoun is a variation of the word “sie.” Capitalization, conjugation and context will help you in determining which “sie” pronoun is being used. The pronoun for “you (formal)” is always capitalized. It uses the infinitive form of verbs, just like the pronoun “sie” (used to mean “they”), so in writing the capitalization will differentiate the two. In spoken German, context will be the key. Meanwhile, the “sie” (used to mean “she”) takes a different conjugational form of verbs and will be recognizable that way.

2) There are two different German pronouns for the single English word “you.” In German, they differentiate between a formal “you” and an informal “you.” Germans actually have two verbs to describe the use of these specific pronouns:  “duzen” and “siezen.” So how do you know when to dutze or sietze? Generally, duzen signals comfort and relationship, whereas siezen signals respect (I like to think of it being akin to the “royal we” used in English); whichever pronoun more accurately depicts the relationship between you and the “you” to whom you wish to refer is the appropriate choice. For example, when addressing a family member or close friend, you would likely refer to them as “du”; when addressing the person conducting your job interview, you would likely refer to them as “Sie.” If you’re ever in doubt, siezen is the safer choice. Many Germans will politely correct you by saying, “Wir dutzen uns” (We call each other “du”)– which is much like if you were to call someone “Dr. Doe” and she responds, “Oh, call me Jane!” I’ve found that it is generally better to show “too much” respect than to not show enough when first engaging with a new person– at the worst you’ll flatter someone.

We have learned that the case and gender of a noun changes its articles and adjectives. When it comes to pronouns, the case still determines which pronoun form to use, but gender is relatively irrelevant. It would be incorrect to say that gender plays no roll in pronoun usage (as we still differentiate between “he”, “she” and “it”)– but instead of having the beloved 4×4 grid based on the noun gender and case, we simply have the pronoun case to consider. Much like in English, one doesn’t say “I love he” or “I love she,”; we would say “I love him” or “I love her.” The pronoun changes to indicate the role of the second person/object/indirect object. However, German has more differentiation than English does (for example, we never change the form of the pronoun “you.”).

Examples:

1. Nominative: You love me.
   1. (Informal) Du liebst mich.
   2. (Formal) Sie lieben mich.
2. Accusative: I love you.
   1. (Informal) Ich liebe dich.
   2. (Formal) Ich liebe Sie.
3. Dative: I took the paper from you.
   1. (Informal) Ich habe die Papier von dir genommen.
   2. (Formal) Ich die Papier von Ihnen genommen.

Now we are going to talk about our “-selves”… all 9 of them! There are many German verbs that require Reflexive pronouns, which are pronouns that translate to things like “myself” “yourself” “himself”… 

Examples:

1. Accusative: You bathe yourself.
   1. (Informal) Du duscht dich.
   2. (Formal) Sie duschen Sich.
2. Dative: You comb your hair. [More literally: You comb the hair yourself. –or– You yourself comb the hair.]
   1. (Informal) Du kämmst dir die Haare.
   2. (Formal) Sie kämmen Sich die Haare.

Now if we compare the 2 charts that we just learned, we will notice that they are rather similar. I have highlighted the differences in yellow:

Basically, if anything changes at all, it becomes “sich” or “Sich” in the reflexive instance.

That’s all that me, myself and I have for you this time around. Now you’re armed with pronouns of all cases, reflexive pronouns of all cases, and information about duzen and siezen. Go take the German world by storm!

Adjective Endings (D, ID and UP Articles)

As you’ve come to know and love, German articles are subject to the relationship of the noun’s gender and case. The combined classification of gender and case also determines the proper endings that must be attached to each of the adjectives ascribed to each noun.

I think the easiest way to demonstrate these adjective endings in action will be to utilize colored charts to decipher the correct adjective ending for each adjective-noun situation you may face, and then to construct examples. We will revamp our example sentences from the Articles post by adding the adjective “groß” (big) to each noun.

1) For nouns that are preceded by a definite article, the adjective endings are:

So, if we used all masculine nouns, the sentence would read like this:

• Der große Löwe isst den großen Apfel von demgroßen Besucher.

If we used all feminine nouns, the sentence would read like this:

• Die große Katze isst die große Kiwi von der großen Nonne.

If we used all neuter nouns, the sentence would read like this:

• Das große Pferd isst das große Fisch von dem großen Kind.

If we used all plural nouns, the sentence would read like this:

• Die großen Bären essen die großen Karotten von den großen Zoowärter.

In instances of the genitive case for each gender, the sentences would read like this:

• Der Löwe isst den Apfel des großen Besuchers.
• Die Katze isst die Kiwi der großen Nonne.
• Das Pferd isst das Fisch des großen Kinds.
• Die Bären essen die Karotten der großen Zoowärter.

2) For nouns that are preceded by an indefinite article, the adjective endings are:

If we used all masculine nouns, the sentence would read like this:

• Ein großer Löwe isst einen großen Apfel von einem großen Besucher.

If we used all feminine nouns, the sentence would read like this:

• Eine große Katze isst eine große Kiwi von einer großen Nonne.

If we used all neuter nouns, the sentence would read like this:

• Ein großes Pferd isst ein großes Fisch von einem großen Kind.

If we used all plural nouns and the “ein word” “kein”, the sentence would read like this:

• Keine großen Bären essen keine großen Karotten von keinen großen Zoowärter.

In instances of the genitive case for each gender, the sentences would read like this:

• Ein Löwe isst einen Apfel eines großen Besuchers.
• Eine Katze isst eine Kiwi einer großen Nonne.
• Ein Pferd isst ein Fisch eines großen Kinds.
• Keine Bären essen keine Karotten keiner großen Zoowärter.

3) For nouns that are not preceded by any article, the adjective endings are:

Notice how “gendered” these endings are! They are almost identical to the “der words” (definite articles) chart we learned in the Articles post (click here to see the “der words” chart)– the only difference is that the genitive masculine and genitive neuter are “-en” instead of “-es.” The way I remember that the unpreceded adjective endings is by supposing that if there is no article to define the noun’s gender, something has to do it, and that the noun’s adjective takes on that responsibility. Let’s change things up a bit an construct some new sentences using these nouns:

If we used each of these unpreceded nouns in the nominative case, the sentences would read like this:

• Übermäßiger Zorn hat Folgen.  (Excessive anger has consequences.)
• Übermäßige Gier hat Folgen. (Excessive greed has consequences.)
• Einwandfreies Gespür ist wichtig. (Impeccable intuition is important.)
• Glaubwürdige Lügen sind schlau. (Believable lies are clever.)

If we used each of these unpreceded nouns in the accusative case, the sentences would read like this:

• Sie hat unvorstellbaren Zorn. (She has incredible anger.)
• Sie hat unvorstellbare Gier. (She has incredible greed.)
• Sie hat unvorstellbares Gespür. (She has incredible intuition.)
• Sie hat unvorstellbare Lügen erzählt. (She has told incredible lies.)

If we used each of these unpreceded nouns in the dative case, the sentences would read like this:

• Sie war mit unvorstellbarem Zorn bestraft. (She was cursed with incredible anger.)
• Sie war mit unvorstellbarer Gier bestraft. (She was cursed with incredible greed.)
• Sie war mit unvorstellbarem Gespür bestraft. (She was cursed with incredible intuition.)
• Sie war mit unvorstellbaren Lügen bestraft. (She was cursed with incredible lies.)

If we used each of these unpreceded nouns in the genitive case, the sentences would read like this:

• Wegen unvorstellbaren Zorn, war der König ermordet. (Due to incredible anger, the king was murdered.)
• Wegen unvorstellbarer Gier, war der König ermordet. (Due to incredible greed, the king was murdered.)
• Wegen “unvorstellbaren“ Gespür, war der König ermordet. (Due to “incredible” intuition, the king was murdered.)
• Wegen unvorstellbarer Lügen, war der König ermordet. (Due to incredible lies, the king was murdered.)

4) For when you are totally in the dark about which adjective ending to use, the unchanging endings are: 

This fourth chart highlights endings which are the same, no matter if the noun is preceded by a definite article, indefinite article without an article. The moral of this story is that you’re best off guessing “-en” or “-e” if you’re really unsure.

Now that you know how to properly end them, go ahead and spice up those sentences with cunning adjectives!

Prepositions (A, D, G and 2-way)

If you’re new to language learning, you may not know, but prepositions are the jerks of the parts of speech family. They include (but are not limited to) the words for:

above, across, after, along, among, around, at, before, behind, below, beside, besides, between, but, by, down, during, for, from, in, inside, into, like, near, of, off, on, outside, over, past, save, since, to, through, throughout, under, until, upon, with, within, without.

Each language has different prepositions to go with different phrases. In English, you would say, “I stayed with my Aunt.” or “I stayed at my Aunt’s.” In German, you would say, “Ich war bei meiner Tante”– which literally translates to “I was by my Aunt.” For this reason it is very important to learn the correct prepositional phrases. This website is a nice resource to see exactly how some of the more common prepositions function, and if you scroll to the bottom of the page that this link takes you to, it will show you a list of verbs that have a specific preposition attached.

However, in this post I want to focus on the different effects that German prepositions have on pronouns, nouns (and their adjectives) rather than the specific pairings of verbs and prepositions.

Certain prepositions will always render their pronoun’s or noun’s case (and attached adjectives) accusative, dative or genitive.

Memorizing this chart will give you an easy boost to improving your German grammar, as the accusative and dative prepositions are rather common. The genitive prepositions that I have listed in the first column (“anstatt” through “wegen”) are the ones that I have found to be the most useful in my normal German interactions. Genitive prepositions can usually be avoided altogether by using other phrases to communicate the same meaning, but nothing says that you can’t whip one out and “wow” your native speaker friends with one if the opportunity arises (My favorite is “trotz”).

Our understanding of nominative, accusative and dative tells us that in the sentence:

I bought my daughter the car.

“I’ is nominative, “the car” is accusative, and “my daughter” is dative.

If we add the preposition “for” (“für”) and change the sentence to:

I bought the car for my daughter.

“I” is nominative, “the car” is accusative, and the use of the preposition “for” (“für”) renders the noun “my daughter” accusative instead of dative. No matter what, the noun (or pronoun, and the attached adjectives) after an accusative preposition, they will be accusative. The same goes for dative and genitive prepositions respectively. 

You will notice that there are many other prepositions that I have not listed for you in the chart above. *Most* of these prepositions fall into a fourth category known as 2-way prepositions (I say “most” because I cannot find an exhaustive list of genitive prepositions anywhere!). As the name implies, 2-way prepositions can render the subsequent noun or pronoun’s case (and attached adjective’s cases) either accusative OR dative. So, how to decide? Unfortunately you can’t just pick one and run with it. Knowing which case is appropriate to use depends on the situation your sentence is describing:

• If your sentence’s preposition is detailing information about “where to,” then the accusative case is used. 
• If your sentence’s preposition is detailing information about “where,” then the dative case is used.

I remember these relationships because the phrase “where to” has more letters than “where,” just like “accusative” has more letters than the word “dative.”

Let’s explore an example set of situations:

1. I am getting in the car.
2. I am in the car.

The first sentence is answering the question “where to” by telling where I am going: into the car. The second sentence is answering the question “where” by telling you where I am. So the German equivalents would look like:

1. Ich gehe in das Auto –or– Ich gehe ins Auto.
2. Ich bin in dem Auto.

Another way teachers may tell you to interpret the correct case is by considering if there is motion or no motion involved. In the first car example, I am “getting in(to)” the vehicle, whereas in the second car example I am already “in” the vehicle. Just don’t let this fool you. If we had a sentence like,

“The children are playing soccer on the street,”

there appears to be motion (playing), however the prepositional phrase isn’t really connected to this motion. The prepositional phrase is acting as additional information about the motion and isn’t part of the motion itself (It is answering the question “where” rather than the question “where to”).

I have also devised my own method for discerning the proper case. I will visualize a cameraman filming my sentence: if to capture the essence of my sentence he’d be filming a close up of me (or who or whatever) doing something, chances are it’s the accusative case; if to capture the essence of my sentence he’d have to set up a whole scene (a “where”), chances are it’s the dative case. It’s not foolproof, but it helps me when I get stuck on sentences like, “The children are playing soccer on the street.”

Why be so difficult? It helps to clarify what’s going on using grammar instead of extra vocabulary. I’ll blame it on the stereotypical German need for efficiency at all times, including in their language.

A few good examples of this “efficiency” are:

1. Ich skilaufe auf den Berg.
   1. I am skiing (to where?) down the mountain.
2. Ich skilaufe auf dem Berg.
   1. I am skiing (where?) on/at the mountain.

1. Ich gehe in den Laden.
   1. I walk (to where?) into the store (from the parking lot).
2. Ich gehe in dem Laden.
   1. I walk (where) in the store (browsing the aisles).

The entire meaning of the sentence changes with just 1 letter.

The last monkey wrench I’ll throw at you is the set of instances wherein the prepositional phrases don’t serve a “where” or “where to” purpose. One such phrase is, “thinking about.” In German, the verb “denken” which means “to think” can be followed by the prepositions “an” or “über.” These words are followed by the accusative when they are used to mean “about.” 

If we were to say, “denken an” followed with dative, it would be understood to mean “thinking atop” (and “denken über” followed with dative would be understood to mean “thinking above”). This difference would be very important if you were trying to tell someone “Ich denke an dich” (accusative, meaning “I think about you”) versus “Ich denke an dir” (dative, meaning “I think on top of you”), because that could get really awkward, really quickly!

However, not all prepositions that translate to “about” from German to English are followed by the accusative case; it is only true with 2-way prepositions! The phrase “dream about” in German is “traumen von,” and as we learned from the chart at the beginning, “von” is ALWAYS dative. Even if it means “about.”

There you have it! Good luck!

Need-to-Know English Grammar for Successful German Learning [Sentence Structure]

This entry is an extension of the first Need-to-Know English Grammar for Successful German Learning  [Parts of Speech]. You will need to understand the Parts of Speech before this entry will make much sense.

In this entry we will look at:

1. Parts of a Sentence
2. Types of Sentence Structures -and-
3. Types of Sentence Functions.

So, here we go!

1. Parts of a Sentence:

• SUBJECT
  • What is it? the noun performing the verb.
  • Examples: The scientist gave the potion to the robot.
  • Why do we care? In German, the position of a noun as the subject, object or indirect object directly affects which determiner you must use to to construct a grammatically correct sentence. You must identify which of these options your noun is acting as, and take the noun’s gender into account  in order to select the correct determiner. If your noun is the subject, the correct determiner will be the nominative case of the noun gender.
  • Additional Resources: The Tale of Mr. Morton
• OBJECT
  • What is it? the noun receiving the verb.
  • Examples: The scientist gave the potion to the robot.
  • Why do we care? In German, the position of a noun as the subject, object or indirect object directly affects which determiner you must use to to construct a grammatically correct sentence. You must identify which of these options your noun is acting as, and take the noun’s gender into account  in order to select the correct determiner. If your noun is the object, the correct determiner will be the accusative case of the noun gender.
• INDIRECT OBJECT
  • What is it? the to whom/for whom  of the verb.
  • Examples: The scientist gave the potion to the robot.
  • Why do we care? In German, the position of a noun as the subject, object or indirect object directly affects which determiner you must use to to construct a grammatically correct sentence. You must identify which of these options your noun is acting as, and take the noun’s gender into account  in order to select the correct determiner. If your noun is the indirect object, the correct determiner will be the dative case of the noun gender.
• PREDICATE
  • What is it? the rest of the sentence that isn’t the subject.
  • Examples: The scientist gave the potion to the robot.
  • Why do we care? No reason in particular that I can think of at this time.
  • Additional Resources: The Tale of Mr. Morton
• CLAUSE
  • What is it? the the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. A typical clause consists of a subject and verb and sometimes other modifiers.
  • Examples: The scientist made the potion.
  • Why do we care? In German, clauses and the conjunctions and relative pronouns that connect them play games with verb/word order and word choice in a sentence.
• INDEPENDENT CLAUSE
  • What is it? a clause that can stand on its own as a grammatically correct sentence.
  • Examples: The scientist made the potion because he wanted to. Because he wanted to, the scientist made the potion.
  • Why do we care? In German, clauses and the conjunctions that connect them play games with verb/word order in a sentence. If the independent clause comes first, then the clause is constructed normally. If the independent clause comes after the dependent clause, the dependent clause is treated as the first “word” of a sentence and the verb of the independent clause comes right after the dependent clause’s comma. Here are the examples from above, in German: Der Wissenschaftler hat den Zaubertrank gemacht, weil er es wollte. Weil er es wollte, hat der Wissenschaftler den Zaubertrank gemacht.
• DEPENDENT/SUBORDINATE CLAUSE
  • What is it? a clause that cannot stand on its own as a grammatically correct sentence, usually includes a subordinating conjunction or a relative pronoun. These clauses generally perform (as a clause unit) a grammatical function of the sentence such as compose a noun, adverb or adjective.
  • Examples: The scientist made the potion because he wanted to. Noun Clause: The scientist was proud of what he created. Adverb Clause: When the potion was done, he gave it to the robot. Adjective Clause: The potion, of which he was proud, was given to the robot.
  • Why do we care? In German, clauses and the conjunctions that connect them play games with verb/word order and word choice in a sentence. The subordinating conjunction determines the verb/word order of the dependent/subordinate clause. I will expound on each of these conjunctions and their effects in a future post, but for now you can refer to this other author’s explanation. Dependent clauses that are made with relative pronouns require the writer/speaker to understand what part of speech that the clause is fulfilling and therefore which pronoun is grammatically proper to use (masculine, feminine, neuter, nominative, accusative, dative, genitive…). These relative pronouns can also affect word order.
• PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE
  • What is it? a cluster of words that are composed of a preposition, its object and any other modfiers of the object. They can modify nouns, verbs, other phrases or complete clauses.
  • Examples: The scientist with the potion walked towards the robot.
  • Why do we care? In German specifically, prepositions hold a lot of power over the noun case (which affects determiners and other parts of speech endings). Some German prepositions are always accusative, some are always dative, some are always genitive and some switch between accusative and dative based on the relation they describe.

2. Types of Sentence Structures:

• SIMPLE SENTENCE
  • What is it? a sentence composed of a single independent clause.
  • Examples:  I smiled. The scientist made the potion.
  • Why do we care? It’s good to know.
• COMPOUND SENTENCE
  • What is it? a sentence composed of at least two independent clauses.
  • Examples: I smiled and the scientist made the potion.
  • Why do we care? In German conjunctions that connect clauses can play games with verb/word order and word choice.
• COMPLEX SENTENCE
  • What is it? a sentence that contains an independent clause and at least one dependent clause.
  • Examples: I smiled because the scientist made the potion.
  • Why do we care? In German conjunctions that connect clauses can play games with verb/word order and word choice. The subordinating conjunction determines the verb/word order of the dependent/subordinate clause.
• COMPOUND-COMPLEX SENTENCE
  • What is it? a sentence that contains two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause.
  • Examples: I smiled and the robot chortled because the scientist made the potion.
  • Why do we care? In German conjunctions that connect clauses can play games with verb/word order and word choice. The subordinating conjunction determines the verb/word order of the dependent/subordinate clause.

3. Types of Sentence Functions:

• DECLARATIVE SENTENCE
  • What is it? a sentence that makes a statement.
  • Examples: Robots move. Cheese is delicious.
  • Why do we care? It’s good to know.
• INTERROGATIVE SENTENCE
  • What is it? a sentence that poses a question.
  • Examples: How do robots move?
  • Why do we care? In German almost any sentence can be converted into a question by positioning the verb at the beginning of the sentence and placing a question mark at the end. Example: “Sie kommen nach Hause.” = You come back home. “Kommen Sie nach Hause?” = Are you coming back home?
• IMPERATIVE SENTENCE
  • What is it? a sentence that delivers a demand.
  • Examples: Move the robot. Listen up. Pay attention. Come with us. Come back home with us.
  • Why do we care? In German, the verb will come at the beginning of an imperative sentence, but so that it is not confused with being an interrogative sentence,e the verb form takes a slightly different form. Usually the root of the verb stays and the conjugation falls off of the end. Then the sentence is always punctuated with an exclamation mark at the end. Examples: Beweg den Roboter! Hör zu! Pass auf! Komm mit! Komm mit uns nach Hause!
• EXCLAMATORY SENTENCE
  • What is it? a sentence that expresses intense emotions.
  • Examples: I love watching robots move!
  • Why do we care? In German, the sentence will be punctuated with an exclamation mark at the end, but so that it is not confused with being an imperative sentence, the verb will maintain its ‘usual’ form and position as if it were a simple sentence.

So, now you know! Another thing that is vital to writing good sentences is understanding tenses and how they affect German word order and sentence structure. German verb tenses get me a bit tense, but I’ll do my best to lay them all out for you in an upcoming blog post. Until then, keep studying.

Make Daily Practice Easy– My Methods

The adage goes, “Practice makes perfect.”

Fortunately, or unfortunately, it’s hard to be “perfect” in a foreign language– where we ever chase feeling like we’ve earned the title of “fluent speaker” as this other blog post discusses in detail.  But exposure and practice will make you a lot better a lot faster!

If you’re sick of the flash cards and grammar exercises and are looking for less “traditional” means of practice that you can incorporate into your day every day, may I suggest:

1. READING
   • Children’s books, magazine articles, news articles, pamphlets, advertisements, parallel text novels, novels, … just get your hands on it and go! The beauty of reading is that there is no rush to understand, like there is in listening. You have the time to pick apart sentences word-by-unfamiliar-word until you get it. This is also one of the least expensive methods of practice, thanks to the internet.
2. MUSIC
   • Ever hear a song for the first time in forever and surprised yourself that you still knew all the words? The ability for songs to lodge lyrics in your head can also work in your target language! What’s even better is that the songs, if they aren’t too slang-ridden, can give you easily accessible references for noun genders/grammar structures/phrases. Playing through lyrics in my head have helped me get higher German test scores in the past. I would suggest starting out with slower music so you can get the words and meanings without too much struggle, but honestly, listen to whatever you will continue listening to!  Just be sure to have a reliable set of lyrics nearby so you don’t learn things wrong! When you find an artist or two you really enjoy, buy their CDs/Mp3s and listen to them in the car, on your jog or wherever else. I enjoy Lafee, Tom Albrect and Jupiter Jones. 
      
3. TV/Movies/YouTube
   • Listening comprehension is VITAL to ever having a successful conversation. Start out with short clips and then get hooked on something a bit longer. My college German professor had us watch Rote Rosen, a German soap opera because the themes and vocabulary aren’t too complicated to figure out on the fly– and he knew we’d get sucked into the can’t-turn-away-from-the-train-wreck element of the soap opera. (Echte Kanasta!). If you like movies about WWII or spies, I would seriously recommend Sophie Scholl – The Final Days (Die letzten Tage) or The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen). These movies have really good German history as well as language practice.
4. Pick a friend from class and practice outside of class
   • Remember writing notes in code in the 2nd grade? Well, this is the super-nerd version. It was fun to be speaking in a language not everyone else around you can understand. It also strengthened the bonds of our language network– our high school German club was an awesome, tight-knit bunch!  People would be able to share their newest German-language findings (a book, a song, a silly cartoon), which increased our overall exposure, which is wonderful. It also has the accountability-partner element to it (like your friend who guilts you to come to the gym with them, even though you don’t feel like it)– which can build a little bit of healthy competition too! Not to mention, friends with whom you can engage with in your target language is likely the closest you will be able to come to immersion learning without the pricey experience of studying abroad. Embrace it!!!
5. Actually write/skype/communicate with your pen pals
   • If you’ve studied abroad and picked up a few native friends, or your German teacher set you up with a random pen pal, initiate (or re-initiate) contact! Write an e-mail/facebook message/snail mail letter or call them on Skype and catch up on all the things you’ve been otherwise spending your time on. Germans in particular seem to be really loyal friends if you can keep up with them. Don’t let the buck stop with you!!!
6. Put your target language in your face all the time!
   • Change your technology accounts’ language settings to German. If you already know the technology, you will have immersion vocab practice, if you don’t know the technology, you have incredible motivation to learn.
   • Sign up for things like Transparent Language’s word of the day e-mail.
   • Follow language learning sites on facebook (put it in your face all the time)
     • Learn German Online
     • Deutsche Sprachwelt
     • Linguee
     • linguisten.de
     • Learn-German-Easily
     • Goethe-Institut – Deutsch lernen
     • German
     • Deutsch Happen
     • DW Learn German
     • Deutsch lernen und studieren
     • Transparent Language

The underlying moral of this story is to do what you would normally do (read/listen to music/watch videos/talk with friends/check social  media) and add a few pinches of your target language into the mix! That way it won’t seem like practice, it will seem normative, natural and (eventually) easy! Plus, by adding it into what you already do, it will likely be tailored to the format you most enjoy engaging with– which will make it both more practical and more fun.

How do YOU incorporate your language learning into your (daily) life? 

Free Online Language Practice

We are fortunate enough to live in the age of the internet– all of the knowledge of the world wide web at our fingertips– if only we know where to look!

Lucky for you, I’ve done a lot of searching already for free language-learning/practice websites!

Here are some of my favorites:

• Memrise – This is my new favorite website. It has oodles of courses you can sign up for, all of the content for which is user generated. AND it’s not limited to just languages. I also signed up for some medical terminology courses. Because it is all user generated, you do have to take it with a grain of salt, and not all of the courses are super well constructed. BUT there are a lot of really good courses available (especially for lower-level German), and you can message the creator of the lessons if you have any questions (no guarantees they will respond, though). What’s cool is you can go at your own pace learning new words (planting) an testing your memory (watering). It will mix up the words you have learned and give you a good review session for any class of words you’ve previously learned and wish to brush up on. Additionally, you have the option to skip certain words in lessons– like if you already know a good number of the vocabulary words on the list, and just want to practice with the 7 you don’t know quite as well. This way you don’t waste time. For words you have difficulty with, it gives you the option to create a “Mem”
  

  This is my “Mem” for اَلْأُولَى which is the Arabic word for “the first”. The Arabic word is pronounced al-ah-oo-la; which reminded me of the French Looney Toons character PePe LePew saying “oh-la-la.”

  which is a picture/text combination to help you remember the word better. If you get the word wrong during practice, you will be shown the Mem you made, or be prompted to make one (you don’t have to). You can also create your own classes, so if you have a specific list of vocabulary words (like I want to learn a lot of technical German words), you can type them in and the webpage will generate the course for you to navigate through. You get bonus points for quick (correct) answers. You can link it with your facebook account to get competitive with other friends. I also love that the sessions are relatively short, so you can sneak one in while waiting for the bus, or do a few during lunch.

• Lang-8 – This should be my favorite website– but it’s not always fun to work on what you’re not good at. I am a terrible German writer. Speaking? No problem– you can slur through those adjective endings and no one will bat an eye, but on paper/screen, the flaws are sitting there, indisputably, in black and white. This is why I NEED Lang-8 in my life!!! It is all about getting you to be a better writer in your target language… which makes it one of the few sites you can use to work on your understanding and application of grammar. When you sign up it asks you for your native language, as well as your target languages. Your home page will look similar to your facebook newsfeed– entries in your native language with a lot of spelling/grammar errors! This is because the website has been smart in making sure no one abuses the system. In order for you to submit an entry you have written in your target language and get the corrections of native speakers, the website requires you to give your native speaker corrections to others seeking to learn your native language. You get points for correcting other people’s essays, which in turn you spend to get other people to correct your essays. The best part is that all corrections are submitted by native speakers– no archaic words will go by uncorrected– one of the dangers of using dictionaries for new vocabulary. The only downside to this structure is that all corrections are provided by native speakers, which means they may not be able to explain their corrections to you very well in a language you can understand. Because this website requires you to generate content instead of answer multiple choice questions, the time commitment required is greater… especially if you’re like me and struggle with writing in the first place. Make sure you have time to sit down and crank out that blurb– or you can start a draft and submit it to the community later.
• duolingo – This website is akin to Memrise, but is just for languages. It is not comprised of user-generated content, and therefore has a more consistent quality throughout all of its courses. What is great about this website is that it tests you in a bunch of different ways including recognition, spelling, listening comprehension, and speaking. You can turn off the speaking questions if you do not have a microphone. There is also an “immersion” section where you can read and translate real articles in your target language. I have not used this functionality much myself, but, it is there to utilize should you choose. The site keeps track of how many days in a row you have practiced and rewards you with extra lives– which you’ll probably need. Every time you get a question wrong, you lose a life and if you lose all of them, the lesson ends and you have to start over (or choose a different lesson). If you get fueled by anger-from-failure like I do, you can use this life-based system to your advantage. You can also link it to your facebook page to generate competition among your friends. There are a few flaws in this website, but you can submit any qualms you may have to the creators and they will get back to you about your message.
• Ba Ba Dum – This site is unique because it doesn’t really care what your native language is. The navigation and interaction with the site is almost entirely picture based. You can create an account to log your progress, or you can just pop on and do a few rounds without committing. You select your target language from the flag options in the bottom right corner, and select the game/practice method in the top left. There is a game where they give you the word and you have to choose the appropriate picture, one where they give you a picture and you have to choose the appropriate word, one where they say the word and you have to choose the appropriate picture, one where they give you a picture an the letters to make up the word are scrambled below for you to sort out, and a scramble option to shuffle each of the above into your game. There is no “end” to the lessons, so whenever you feel like stopping is when you’re done. You have to create your own sense of closure, but again, that makes it great for whipping out at the bus stop or during the last few moments of your precious 30 minute lunch break.
• lingua.ly – I have not yet mastered this site, but if I understand its premise correctly, it has the power to be very useful for higher-level language learners. You create an account and install the button to your web toolbar. Then, as you are surfing websites in your target language, you have the option to add words on the page to your lingua.ly stash by double-clicking on them. It will then prompt you with a list of translation options, from which you select the ones you would like to learn. It will then save the words to your lingua.ly list and bring with it the context in which you found them. So, not only does it encourage you to surf websites in your target language– but all the surfing you’re doing should be related to your interests– no more stupid, outdated essays you couldn’t care less about! If you’re into fashion, you can learn fashion vocabulary. If you’re into refurbishing cars, cool. Build that vocabulary. I started surfing robot manufacturer websites to grab some vocabulary that I might hear floating around a German robot sales meeting. That being said– a complaint I would file against this site is that it automatically capitalizes each of the words you import, which is NOT a good thing in German, as capitalization is how you distinguish nouns from other parts of speech. A second complaint is that if the toolbar application doesn’t recognize the word on the page when you double click to add the word to your list, it won’t add the word to your list. You will have to manually add it to your practice list. I’m a little confused because I added words manually that the ap couldn’t translate, and then on my list on the site, it had them translated without need of my assistance… but hey, it’s a free service, I can’t complain too much!

If you have a smart phone, and aren’t living in the ‘dark ages’ like I am, you can download a free app from FunEasyLearn with 6000 German vocabulary words. Obviously, without the smart phone I can’t attest to the awesomeness of this product, but if it’s free vocab practice you can take with you on the go, what’s not to love?

If you ARE still in the ‘dark ages’ like I am, first of all *high five*. Second of all, (and this goes for people that don’t want to always have their fancy phones out too,) there is a fantastic offering of free quick-phrase books at LivingLanguage. These are lifesavers when you go to a country that speaks your target language and you are blanking on the word for “train station” or “pharmacy”.

If you’re trying to utilize one of the above listed practice websites away from home, where your Langenscheidt dictionary and copy of The Duden reside, the internet also offers a smattering of good online dictionaries and translation tools.

• dict.cc – a short little URL that could save your life– or at least your German grade! The best part about this dictionary is that it tells you the number of people that prefer which translation over each other translations. For example, if you type in “wedding” on their site, it tells you that “Hochzeit” is preferred by 3676 people, and “Eheschließung” is preferred by 2671 people, whereas “Vermählung” is preferred by only 37 people. This gives you a good feel as to how appropriate your choice for translation is and helps you avoid using archaic words. If you were writing something about a wedding, chances are you would go with one of the first two choices and leave “Vermählung” in the dictionary. Words sometimes also have subjects listed with them, which is useful when trying to determine if the word for “thread” you are thinking about using is the one used in sewing textiles (Faden) or online forums (Thema). And lastly, the dictionary has sound bytes of most words. You can listen to people pronounce the words, and record your own for the posterity of the website.
• Leo – This dictionary is German, and used for translating into other languages. It is much like the dictionary I mentioned before, just without the preference ratings.
• PONS – This dictionary is unique because it includes a visual dictionary, text translation AND you can save words from the dictionary to a vocabulary list to practice later.
• Google Translate – If you don’t want to navigate to “German,” just type in translate.google.de . The “.de” stands for Deutschland. This website is good for translating phrases. Keep in mind that Google Translate is fallible, and sometimes gets really confused with German word-order (especially if punctuation is involved). Although it may seem like a pain that this site isn’t perfect, I find it comforting that because it is imperfect, my efforts to learn a foreign language aren’t totally in vain. There is still a need for human translators.
• IM Translator – Before the days of Google Translate, this was my go-to free translator. It’s a little rougher around the edges than Google Translate, but if you’re looking for a second, third or fourth opinion, this isn’t a bad place to get one. You can compare translations between 4 translators (one being Google Translate) with just a click. You can even back-translate to make sure you successfully communicate the message you wish to. Downside: this translator can only manage 1000 characters of text at a time… perhaps that’s where twitter got its idea for abbreviated postings?
• About.com – If you are getting into translator fights for conjugations (specifically informal vs. formal “you”), this specific link at about.com lists the 20 most common German verbs with partial conjugation lists, while this specific link lists 50 common German verbs with links to conjugation lists.

It’s an exciting time to be a language learner, with all of these resources available. You can get corrections from native speakers or look up unfamiliar words on the go– so no more excuses! Get learning!!!

What (preferably free) language learning websites do you utilize?

Need-to-Know English Grammar for Successful German Learning [Parts of Speech]

I learned more about English grammar in my German classes than I ever learned in any of my English classes.

The reason for this wasn’t because I only ever had horrible English teachers (quite the contrary! I still remember the preposition song set to the tune of “Yankee Doodle” my 6th grade Language Arts teacher made us learn that has served me well); the reason is because I was raised in an English-speaking society/household. Being immersed in the language and observing others around me since birth taught me that, “The dog brown I yesterday walked” wasn’t normal English sentence structure, and that the better answer would be, “I walked the brown dog yesterday.” I didn’t need to know any more about the rules of English grammar than what was accepted as understandable and ‘normal-sounding’ by my peers and what wasn’t. Listening to and reproducing grammatically correct sentences was way more efficient than spending my English classes mapping out sentence structures and understanding the linguistic reasons behind why “The dog brown I yesterday walked” is wrong. I already knew that it sounded wrong, so I wan’t going to say it; my school recognized that and instead spent the time I could have been mapping out sentence structures teaching me more vocabulary and poetic forms. For practicality’s sake, they made the right choice.  It wasn’t until I began learning German that I needed to give thought to how languages worked, piece by piece.

When I began learning German, with all of its “strange” grammar rules, my only frame of reference was English grammar– of which I didn’t understand the mechanics. Because I didn’t learn those grammar rules in English class, I had to learn them in my German class so I could decipher how German grammar functions.

There is at least one book out on the market that recognized this conundrum and tried to fill the void. I have never read it, so I can’t attest to whether or not it is worth your money– but I assure you the problem it is attempting to solve is real. That being said, I’m not trying to plug the entire gaping hole that is the void of English grammar comprehension. I’m instead going to explain the very basics you will need to know in order to get through my other posts without having a dictionary of grammatical terms pulled up in an adjacent window. Additionally, when relevant, my posts on each specific subject matter will go more in depth with additional grammar terms. For now, we’re just going to brush up on some vocabulary. Parts of speech in parentheses are classes of words that aren’t technically one of the 8 official parts of speech, but are necessary to understand other parts of speech, or are very closely related to one of the 8 official parts of speech. I have listed and explained them for your benefit.

One last thing before we get started! There is a magnificent resource for learning Grammar functions called “Schoolhouse Rock!” A group of people decided to use the catchiness of music and lyrics to educate students and help them better remember tricky subject matters. There is a whole section called “Grammar Rock!” For the parts of speech that have a “Grammar Rock!” song available, I have listed a youtube.com link under “Additional Resources.”

Parts of Speech

• NOUN –
  • What is it? a word for a person, place or thing.
  • Examples: doctor, post office, dog.
  • Why do we care?  These are vital for German because all nouns are capitalized. Additionally, each noun in German has an assigned gender.
  • Additional Resources: A Noun Is A Person, Place Or Thing
• (PROPER NOUN) – 
  • What is it?  a noun representing unique entities.
  • Examples: Germany, Main street, the President
  • Why do we care? These become irrelevant in German as all nouns are capitalized.
• PRONOUN – 
  • What is it? a word that substitutes for a noun or noun-phrase
  • Examples: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, him, her, us, them.
  • Why do we care? These become vital for German verb conjugation.
  • Additional Resources: Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla
• (REFLEXIVE PRONOUN) – 
  • What is it? a pronoun serves to show that the sentence’s subject also receives the action of the verb as the object.
  • Examples: myself, me, yourself, himself, herself, itself, yourselves, themselves.
  • Why do we care? There are many German verbs that require reflexive pronouns. Determining accusative or dative case is vital only for the correct reflexive conjugation of “I” and informal “you,” but each regular pronoun changes in reflexive situations.
  • Additional Resources: Reflexive pronouns explained by a different author.
• (RELATIVE PRONOUN) – 
  • What is it? words that relate groups of words to nouns or other pronouns and begin relative clauses (which I discuss in this other post).
  • Examples: that, who, whoever, whom, whomever, which, whichever, whose and of which .
  • Why do we care? These words require declension based on their case in the sentence as nominative, accusative, dative or genitive and gender.
  • Additional Resources: Relative pronouns explained by a different author.
• (INDEFINITE PRONOUN) – 
  • What is it? words that relate groups of words to nouns or other pronouns and begin relative clauses (which I discuss in this other post).
  • Examples: everybody, anybody, somebody, all, each, every, some, none, one. There are also other indefinite pronouns that double as determiners: enough, few, fewer, less, little, many, much, several, more, most, all, both, every, each, any, either, neither, none, some.
  • Why do we care? These words require declension based on their case in the sentence as nominative, accusative, dative or genitive and gender.
  • Additional Resources: Relative pronouns explained by a different author. Or another author still, with an extensive list of indefinite pronouns and their grammatical behavior in German.
• (DETERMINER) –
  • What is it? a word that indicates whether the noun is referring to a definite or indefinite object/element of a larger class.
  • Examples: There are four different classes of determiners:
    • articles = the/a/an
    • demonstratives = this/that
    • possessive = my/their; and
    • quantifiers = many/few/several.
  • Why do we care? These are much more complicated in German than in English, which I explain in detail in a different post. The determiner is fully dependent on the gender of the noun it is connected to, as well as that noun’s case– and this relationship determines the German word used for the determiner.
• ADJECTIVE – 
  • What is it? a word used to describe a noun or a noun-phrase.
  • Examples: big, fluffy, orange, round, recent.
  • Why do we care? These take on endings based on the gender of the noun it is connected to, as well as that noun’s case. Additionally, when you start introducing comparative/superlative adjectives to your sentences, the German word for your adjective may change.
  • Additional Resources: Unpack your Adjectives
• VERB – 
  • What is it? a word used to denote action, occurrence or a state of being.
  • Examples: bring, become, exist.
  • Why do we care? Most of German’s sentence structure is dependent on verbs. Each verb has a conjugation table that is navigated using its actor’s respective pronoun. There are also various tenses which can dramatically change the verb. These tenses are discussed in the second portion of this other post.
  • Additional Resources: Verb: That’s What’s Happenin’
• (AUXILIARY VERB) – 
  • What is it? also known as a “helping verb,” these are verbs that add functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it appears. They can denote tense or modality.
  • Examples: She is going home. That would be fun.
  • Why do we care? German tense is highly dependent on these verbs, and their placement in the sentence is crucial to sentence structure.
• ADVERB – 
• • What is it? a word that further describes a verb, adjective, adverbs, clauses or sentences. I can denote the manner, place, time, frequency, certainty or circumstances of the verb action.
  • Examples: quickly, quietly, recently, soon, together.
  • Why do we care? Be thankful for adverbs, because they are one of the few parts of speech that don’t rely on the noun’s gender and role in the sentence! They do play a part in sentence structure, seeing as they can describe the time or manner of action, and German sentences try to specify time, then manner, then the place of action. The only time adverbs get crazy is when you start with comparative/superlative forms of the adverbs, as the German word for your adverb may change.
  • Additional Resources: Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here
• (PARTICIPLE) –
  • What is it? a verb used as modifier for a noun, noun phrase, verb or verb phrase. There are two kinds, present and past. Present participles usually end in “-ing.” Past participles usually end in “-ed.”
  • Examples: The beaming mother clapped, astounded by her son’s obvious talent.
  • Why do we care? In German specifically, prepositions hold a lot of power over the noun case (which affects determiners and other parts of speech endings). Some German prepositions are always accusative, some are always dative, some are always genitive and some switch betwee

  participles (including present and past) http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/particterm.htm

• (COMPARATIVE) – 
  • What is it? a word that quantifies the degree of the adjective or adverb, in comparison to another entity or group of entities.
  • Examples: bigger, more recent, less common.
  • Why do we care? Just like in English, an ended is added to the adjective or adverb, and sometimes there are specific prepositions involved.
• (SUPERLATIVE) – 
  • What is it? a word that quantifies the extreme embodiment of the base adjective or adverb.
  • Examples: biggest, most recent, least common.
  • Why do we care? Just like in English, an ended is added to the adjective or adverb, and sometimes there are specific prepositions involved.
• PREPOSITION – 
  • What is it? a word that expresses spatial or temporal relations. Usually relates nouns, adjectives or verbs.
  • Examples: above, through, in, before
  • Why do we care? These words are tricky in German (and every other foreign language) because they are not always directly translatable between English and German, Example: (English) I live with my aunt. (German) I live by my aunt. You will have to learn which ones to use when as you go. Additionally, in German specifically, prepositions hold a lot of power over the noun case (which we know affects determiners and adjective endings). Some German prepositions are always accusative, some are always dative, some are always genitive and some switch between accusative and dative based on the relation they describe. In my preposition post I list the accusative, dative, genitive and two-way prepositions for you.
  • Additional Resources: Busy Prepositions
• CONJUNCTION – 
  • What is it? a word that connects words, phrases or clauses.
  • Examples: There are three types
    • coordinating = and/but/for/nor/or/so/yet
    • correlative = either…or/not only… but (also)/neither… nor/both… and/whether… or/just as… so
    • subordinating = after/although/as/as far as/as if/because/before/even if/even though/if/ in order that/ since/so/so that/than/though/unless/until/when/whenever/where/whereas/wherever/while.
  • Why do we care? These words can have major roles in determining German sentence structure. German also has specific correlative pairs you will need to learn.
  • Additional Resources: Conjunction Junction
• INTERJECTION/EXCLAMATION – 
  • What is it? a word or phrase used to express emotion, followed by an exclamation mark. They are also words that interrupt the sentence at hand (such as filled pauses).
  • Examples: Yes! Oops! Ouch! Shh! um, yeah, uh.
  • Why do we care? German has its own words for these common interjections. They are functionally the same at their English counterparts.
  • Additional Resources: Interjections!
• (ONOMATOPOEIA) – 
  • What is it?  a word that phonetically imitates, resembles or suggests the source of the sound that it describes. Think animal noises.
  • Examples: oink, meow, squeak, boom, bang.
  • Why do we care? German, like most languages, has its own onomatopoeia words. They are functionally the same at their English counterparts.
• (AFFIX) – 
  • What is it? a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. The same affix generally has the same effect on the word stems it is attached to.
  • Examples: There are 11 different types of affix, but the two most common types are the:
    • Prefix = an affix placed at the beginning of a word to form a new word. Ex: asymmetric. atypical. atheist. “a-” = not; misbehave. misrepresent. misspell.  “mis-” = bad/wrong. An extensive list of other English prefixes can be found here.
    • Suffix = an affix placed at the end of a word to form a new word. Ex:  biology. endocrinology. criminology. “-ology” = the study of; beautiful, wonderful, colorful. “-ful” = having the possession of the quality of that noun.
  • Why do we care? German has its own affixes and associated meanings. Affixes as a whole serve the same function as English affixes, but the ones used may not map directly to the German vocabulary. Ex: “beautiful” in English is an adaptation of the word “beauty”, with the suffix added, but the German word for “beautiful,” “schön” has no suffix attached, where as the word for beauty, “Schönheit” does have a suffix added. German suffixes in particular can have a direct connection with the gender of the noun. Ex: “-chen,” meaning “little” is always neuter.
• (PARTICLE) –
  • What is it? A particle is a word that does not fit into the conventional grammar categories. They perform definite grammatical functions, but lack definite lexical meaning.
  • Examples: The storm tore up my yard. She passed on the family heirloom to her grandchild. 
    
  • Why do we care? German uses particles as flavor words– they impart attitude, opinion or emphasis. Commonly used ones include: ja, halt, aber, denn, schon, and the imfamous “doch.” The more you hear these words used properly, the clearer their meaning and usage will become. Like in English, man particles are also re-purposed prepositions. Wikipedia explains:
    

    Aber, for example, is also the conjunction but. In Er ist Amerikaner, aber er spricht gut Deutsch, “He is American, but he speaks good German,” aber is a conjunction connecting two sentences. But in Er spricht aber gut Deutsch!, the aber  is a particle, with the sentence perhaps best translated as “What good German he speaks!”

So, there you have it! These are the building blocks for your future German sentences! The way that they relate to one another/interact with each other is the grammar. Think of it as a soccer game (because Germans LOVE soccer): The parts of speech are the players on the field, and you are the referee that has to determine the manners in which they can play with one another. Goalies are allowed to use their hands, but other players aren’t. There are special cases for each part of speech as well. If they break any of the rules of conduct, you blow the whistle and throw a flag. We’ll talk about these rules in detail in the coming posts. Hopefully they will help you with your grammar-learning… GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry. That pun was BEGGING to be played. I understand if you wish to bench me for that one. I hope you will continue reading despite my awful humor. : )

 

German Grammar — What you Need to Know

Most of German grammar relies on 7 things:

1. Capitalization
2. Noun Genders (and their effects on everything)
3. Noun Cases (and their effects on everything)
4. Definite, Indefinite and Unprecedented Articles (and their effects on Determiners and Adjective Endings)
5. Prepositions (and their effects on Noun Cases)
6. Verb Conjugation and
7. Word (specifically Verb) Order.

Let’s get dig in a little bit and see why these 7 things are pivotal to learning grammatically correct German.

___________________________________________

1). Capitalization

German nouns are capitalized, every time. Adjectives are never capitalized, unless they begin a new sentence. Capitalize the first letter of a new sentence. Bam.

2) Noun Genders (and their effects on everything)

Every German noun has a gender. It falls into one of three options:

1) Masculine
2) Feminine
3) Neuter

Sometimes there is rhyme or reason to the gender allocations to the nouns, but sometimes it seems totally haphazard. Your best bet is to memorize the gender when you first learn the vocab word. Genders for nouns and adjectives are generally related to/derived from the last syllable of the noun. If you don’t know the gender, you can usually form an educated guess by looking at that last syllable. Words that are obviously derived from English or other languages are generally gender neutral.

Then, each noun can be pluralized, which creates a 4th category of “gender.”

4) Plural.

Each of these genders has an effect on the grammar of the sentence.

3) Noun Cases (and their effects on everything)

German has four cases which help determine the actors and objects in a sentence… which you will eventually appreciate when you learn more about German word order rules and how they are very different from English.

1) Nominative: The subject of a sentence, the thing doing the action
2) Accusative: The direct object, the thing which is directly receiving the action, or the object of certain prepositions.
3) Dative: The indirect object, as in when an object is given to someone, or the object of certain prepositions and verbs
4) Genitive: The possessor of something, or the object of certain prepositions or verbs; in English “Whose?”

Here is an example sentence to break down:

The girl gave the boy their mother’s book.

The girl is the subject. (Nominative)
The book is the direct object. (Accusative)
The boy is the indirect ‘object’. (Dative)
The mother is the possessor. (Genitive)

So, if we were going to apply German grammar rules to that sentence, we would have to take into account both the case of each noun, as well as the gender of the word and use that information to determine the correct word or endings that need to be applied. Pronouns, like nouns, also undergo change in relation to case. 

These combinations can easily be represented on a chart, with the cases along the Y axis and genders along the X axis.

In upcoming posts, there are 5 charts set up like this to help you navigate all of the possibilities. You determine which chart to use by determining if you are talking about a Definite, Indefinite or Unprecedented Article and if you are trying to determine the grammatical information about a Noun or an Adjective (ending).

Based on a combination of the gender of the noun and its position in the sentence (nominative, accusative, dative) there are:

–6 different definite articles, or words for “the” (der words).

• der (masculine)
• die (feminine or plural)
• das (neuter)
• den (variable)
• dem (variable)
• des (variable)

–6 different indefinite article endings, or words for “a” (ein words), which are also the 6 possible adjective endings.

• -er
• -e
• -es
• -en
• -em
• – (none)

My first German teacher advised me to memorize these 5 charts early on. I rebelled, and I regret it immensely! If I were any less afraid of needles, I seriously would have gotten them tattooed on my forearm for test-taking purposes during my semester abroad in Germany. Yes, they are THAT vital to your grammatical success. 

4) Definite, Indefinite and Unprecedented Articles (and their effects on Determiners and Adjective Endings)

For the record, “Determiner” is the part of speech that the words “the” and “a” (or “an”) belong to. This is relevant because, as we mentioned in #2, these words change in relation to the Case of the Noun that the Determiner it is attached to.

• Definite articles are specific nouns: I want the fresh bread. I want the pencil.
• Indefinite articles are less specific nouns: I want a piece of fresh bread. I want a pencil.
• Unprecedented articles are nouns with no determiner present: I want   fresh bread. I want   pencils.

You have to determine what sort of article the Noun in question is before you can pick which (Noun Case) x (Noun Gender) chart you need to reference.

5) Prepositions (and their effects on Noun Cases)

The most difficult part of learning of any language, I have been told, is learning to understand prepositions. In English we think “about” someone, while in German, you think “on” someone. Unfortunately, German preposition troubles don’t stop there. They have the power to affect the case of the object noun. The object noun is the one receiving the action of the verb (Ex: The cat ran through the forest.).

There are 3 types of prepositions:

• Accusative
• Dative
• 2-way

Some prepositions always render the object noun accusative. Some prepositions always render the object noun dative. Some prepositions are dependent on whether your noun is answering the question “where?” or “where to?”. I will have a whole post dedicated to this topic in greater detail (including the lists of these prepositions). The reason I bring it up now is because if your sentence uses a preposition, this will affect your noun case, which we discovered in #2 also affects your adjective endings and choice of determiner/article.

6) Verb Conjugation

Unfortunately, as a native English speaker, we are less in tune with verb conjugation than many other language speakers of the world. The conjugations of the verb are dependent on the subject noun or pronoun of the sentence. The subject noun of the sentence is the noun doing the action (Ex: The cat ran through the forest). The best example in English is the verb “to be”:

• I am
• You are
• He/She/It is
• We are
• They are

In German, every verb requires conjugation. Luckily, most verbs follow the same standard conjugation pattern. However, there are verbs that take strange variations to their conjugations, like Modal Verbs. I will further explain standard conjugation and modal verb conjugations, as well as extrapolations on verbs in different tenses in coming posts.

Conjugation also determines whether or  not the verb is being used imperatively (command form).

7) Word (specifically Verb) Order

When constructing a perfect German sentence, it is important to pay attention to word order.

Despite all of the noise above about Nouns– Verbs are really king when it comes to German. They, and their relationship to all other parts of the sentence, determine the word order.

• In simple sentences, the verb always comes second. Subject –> Verb –> (Object, if applicable).
  • Ex: I paint pictures.
• If there is more than one verb in the sentence, the subject’s direct verb goes second, and all other verbs cluster at the end in their infinitive form. This can become rather confusing in long sentences, but it becomes much easier in practice… and you’ll learn to love defaulting to the infinitive verb form.
  • Ex1: I can paint pictures. –> I can pictures paint.
  • Ex2: We can go swimming tomorrow. –> Tomorrow can we swimming going.
• If not using a question word (who, what, where, when, why, how), German requires that the verb comes first to denote a question. This helps with clarification between statements and questions (as does intonation and punctuation).
  • Ex: Are you coming with us? –> Coming you with us?
• Coordinating conjunctions denote a “resetting” or word order. It applies the word order rules separately to each clause.
  • Ex: We have eaten dinner and now we are tired. –> We have dinner eaten and now are we tired.
• Subordinating conjunctions will alter verb/word order by creating a subordinate clause. Where you choose to put the subordinate clause will determine your sentence structure. I will go over this in greater detail in a future post.
  • Ex1 (Subordinate clause last): We want candy because we are hungry. –> We want candy, because we hungry are.
  • Ex2 (Subordinate clause first): Because we have eaten, we are tired. –> Because we eaten have, are we tired.

Other things to note about word order include:

• Unlike English, German follows the pattern of addressing the Time, Manner and Place of action in that order.
  • Ex: We will go to the bank with our check tomorrow. –> Tomorrow will we with our check to the bank going.
• Like English, German places the adjective in front of the noun it describes and the adverb in front of the verb it describes (except when there is more than one verb in the sentence).
• Verb negations come after the verb.
  • Ex: He does not laugh. –> He laughs not.

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And there you have it! The basics of “The Awful German Language,” as Mark Twain called it.

There is a lot to take in, memorize and apply, but take a breath and take heart!

Although you undoubtedly should dedicate time and effort to memorizing  all of the rules and charts to perfect your German grammar, if you use incorrect combination of “the”-s, “a”-s, endings, or conjugations, German speakers will usually understand you. Just don’t get too comfortable being understood in spite of your poor grammar, or else you may end up having to talk yourself out of grammar chart tattoos later on in life too!

Alt Codes for Typing

Chances are, at some point, you will want to try and write something in German on a computer. Be it for an essay, an e-mail, a facebook message or to look up a word in an online dictionary, it is important to know how to type all of the special German characters. But on a standard English keyboard, there are no vowels with umlauts, or the Eszett; so how do you make them pop up on your screen?

The answer is using “Alt Codes”. Press and hold the “Alt” key on your keyboard, and then on the numbers pad, press the number combination below that is associated with your desired letter. Then let go of the “Alt” key. Your desired letter should appear as soon as you release the “Alt” key. If it doesn’t, make sure that your “Num Lock” is on, and try again. If you make a typo while entering the numbers, a different character may appear. Don’t worry, you didn’t break your computer– you just summoned up a different Alt Code. Just delete it and try again.

If you are like me in college, and didn’t have a keyboard with a Numbers Pad, it is generally accepted to represent an umlauted letter with an “e” after the what would be the umlauted vowel (Ex: “ä” would be typed “ae” or “ö” would be typed “oe”). Substituting for the “ß” gets a little tricky because there are specific rules about using the “ß” versus a double “s”.

Microsoft Office products also usually have the “Insert Symbol” option. You can dig through all of the available symbols and create a document with each of the special characters from which to copy and paste.

If all else fails, you can use Google to search for a word with the umlauted letter or Eszett from which you can copy and paste the desired character into your document/webpage.

Now, because you made it all the way down to the bottom of my post, I’ll let you in on a few extra Alt Code “secrets”. You can get a small umlauted “u” in a circle, a color-inverted small umlauted “u” in a circle and a symbol that represents my relationship to the German language:

Alt+1 = ☺; Alt +2 = ☻ and Alt + 3 = ♥ .

Thanks for reading!

Pronunciation & Translation – Sounding it Out & Breaking it Down

Well, if you’re just starting to learn German, it’s best to start at the beginning.

 

SOUNDING IT OUT

As far as pronunciation goes, German and English are actually pretty similar– they are both Germanic languages after all. But there are a few differences. For starters, German is a LOT more phonetic than English; what you see is what you say! Unless words are borrowed from other languages (and sometimes not even then), you will never see a ‘silent’ letter in German (take that French learners)!

The first difference you might notice in picking up anything written in German is the addition of a few letters. Really quick, I want to tell you the names of the “little dots on top” of the vowels and the “squiggily B with a tail”.

The dots are an accent mark called the umlaut. And unfortunately they aren’t just there to make your “u” look like a smiley face (or make the “o” look like it’s screaming in terror”). They are there to denote a different vocalization/pronunciation of the vowel. But, using the face visual is actually kind of helpful because, as you’ll see in the chart, they require you to move your lips differently than the regular, un-umlauted vowel.

The letter that looks like a “squiggily B with a tail” is a letter from the Greek alphabet that the Germans use to make a double “s” noise. In German, it is called the Eszett.

The biggest differences between English and German pronunciation are those listed in my chart below. I have provided you with a short example word that showcases the pronunciation. When I was learning, I found it most helpful to remember a specific, common, word with the different letters in it for reference. This will help your pronunciation by giving you something to try and simulate/recreate on your own. I had issues with the “ä” noise in particular. Whenever I found a new word with an ä in it, I would quietly say my example word, “Mädchen”, to myself before reading the new word aloud.

 

If you are learning German outside of a classroom and you aren’t sure that you are pronouncing a word correctly, the websites www.dict.cc or www.translate.google.de have audio clips for a good number of words. Take a few good listens to the word, and then try to repeat it yourself.

Before you start reading the rest of this post, I want to tell you not to panic! The 11 pronunciation rules above apply in most situations and should get you through most of the strange new words you will encounter in the German dictionary. However, just like in every language, there are exceptions, some of which I will briefly describe below.

• Combinations of multiple letters sometimes produce a different sound. For example, “-tion” is pronounced “tee-O-n”. (A good key word for this is “Nation”).
• Specific combinations of consonant compounds and vowels will play into how the consonant compounds are pronounced.
  • This website has a more specific guide for some of those instances. It breaks down the relationships between the consonants and surrounding vowels that determine the changes.
• Sometimes the part of Germany you are in (or where your German teacher came from/studied in) will affect your pronunciation in the form of a dialect. My first German teacher, who taught me 4 years of German, studied in Freiburg. Because she was versed in the southern, Freiburg-ian, German, that is the dialect/accent that I most closely mirror… and when I studied German in the northern city of Hamburg, people often asked me where I/my German was from. I was usually understood, but sometimes asked to repeat myself for clarity.
  • A good example of this is in the adjective ending “-ig”. In southern German, “-ig” is pronounced “-ish”. In northern German, “-ig” is pronounced “-ig”.
  • The word “ich” (meaning “I”) also changes drastically. In southern German it is pronounced “ish”  while the northern Germans will say “ick”.
• German also borrows a lot of words from other languages, which sometimes determines what the reader has to do with pronunciation rules. For example:
  • The word for Jeans in German is “die Jeans”, borrowed from English. So instead of following the “j” = “yuh” rule and saying “dee Yeens”, the correct pronunciation is “dee jeens”, just like English.
  • The German word for the color/fruit orange is borrowed from French. The word (noun) is “die Orange”. Instead of following the German rules and saying “dee oR-ang-uh”, with “-e” = “-ah”, it is pronounced more like “dee oR-an-zjuh” (sorry, my French transliteration is probably horrible).
  • The best way to work around these oddities is to learn them, make some strange memory association between the word and the language it is borrowed from, and repeat the word out loud a lot. I always pictures the jeans in question to be Levi’s– which I associate with American (English-speaking) cowboys. For the word “orange”, I think about how orange is an obnoxious color, and that I find the French language (specifically its spelling –>pronunciation) to be obnoxious. Like I said, find whatever association works for you, no matter how weird, and run with it!

Practice and exposure to audio/visual resources will be your greatest aids! Especially when you’re trying to differentiate the pronunciation between words like “Kirche” and “Kirsche” (“Church” and “Cherry”). And context will be your greatest rescuer in conversation, should you make an error. Lucky for you, most Germans are just tickled when you try to speak German instead of demanding to be catered to in English. In almost every instance, German people I encountered in Germany were understanding and willing to try and explain my faults so I could fix them.

BREAKING IT DOWN

Another large portion of German pronunciation comes with learning how Germans “build” words. You’ve probably heard of German words that are longer than the English alphabet. My favorite long word that might come up in a ‘normal’ conversation is “Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung” which has 26 letters and means “speed limit”. I like to think of long German words as an ornate Lego castle, built out of blocks of common words. The Germans like to create very specific, complicated words out of many less specific, less complicated words stacked on top of each other– which is GOOD for new language learners because the big words are usually made out of words you’ll already know how to say. The trick is learning to recognize these familiar words within the compound word. Additionally, although you may not know the perfect translation of a new monster word, if you can translate the smaller pieces it is built out of, you can get a general understanding of the topic at hand.

Let’s take my favorite long word, “Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung”

We can sound it out using the chart I gave you above.

gah-sch-vind-ish-kItes-bah-gren-tsung… (or if you’re a northern German speaker, gah-sch-vind-ig-kItes-bah-gren-tsung)

We can also do a lot of damage in understanding how it means “speed limit”.

Let’s break it into some smaller parts: Geschwind~ig~keit~s~be~grenz~ung.

• geschwind = fast
• “-ig” = a word chunk that can turn a noun into an adjective, or a verb stem into an adjective, or transform a noun in front of another noun into an adjective that describes the second noun, (which comes into effect after the next part) (explanation)
• “-keit” = turns an adjective into a noun. It is used like the suffix “-ness” in English. (explanation)
• “-s” = Genitive ending denoting ownership
• “be-” = a prefix that “inflicts” something on a subject (explanation)
• grenz = boundary
• “-ung” = a suffix that changes a verb into a noun. (explanation)

So, if we mush all of that together, we get something along the lines of “fastness of the inflicted boundary” or “limit inflicted on the speediness”.

Even if you only recognize and understand the nouns, “Geschwind” and “Grenze”, which mean “fast” and “boundary”, you will probably be able to understand the definition of the word in context.

Please don’t get held up in all of the grammar-craziness of the prefixes and suffixes and genitive possession that I gave explanation links for. I mostly gave the explanation links to prove that I’m not just making this up. Again, learning a few words with the key prefixes or suffixes and what those word mean will greatly help your understanding of the prefixes and suffixes. Those key words don’t have to be 26 letters long, but they will help in tearing apart the new vocab words that are 26 letters long.

Please don’t get held up by not knowing where all of the breaks should go. The more words you add to your vocabulary (prefixes and suffixes included), the easier it will be to find the “natural” breaks in the big words. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten scared by a big word, gave up on finding the natural breaks, looked up the definition of the word in a dictionary, and then, all of a sudden, all of the natural breaks seemed to pop out of the page in glaring neon letters. That’s called learning. We will know how to break that word apart the next time we see it.

The longest German word approved by the Duden (the official German dictionary) is still up in the air, because in order for it to be “official” the word has to be in common use, but this news article tells the tale of what used to be German’s longest word at an awe-inspiring 63 letters: Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.

The same article also explains how German words (specifically nouns) can get really out of hand:

A ballpoint pen that belongs to a captain could be called a Kapitänskugelschreiber.

If the pen happens to belong to a captain of the Danube Steamship Company, it’s a Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänskugelschreiber.

Let us now refer to the ink used in that pen. This is the Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänskugelschreibertinte.

And, please bear with us, there could theoretically be a shop specializing in such ink. In that case we have a: Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänskugelschreibertintenfachgeschäft.

That store would presumably have a manager, the: Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänskugelschreibertintenfachgeschäftsführer.

That’s 81 letters. And we could go on. But for a word to be officially recognized, it must be in genuine use and must have been referred to in published texts.

Apparently German legalese can put English legalese to shame. Check out this 67 letter word:

Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung

Again, this word can be cut down into bite-sized pieces, as this website shows:

Grundstück: plot of land
Verkehr: traffic
Genehmigung: approval
Zuständigkeit: responsibility
Übertragung: transmission
Verordnung: regulation

It just goes to show that gargantuan German words CAN be tamed, pronounced, and understood, if you’re willing to crack the whip and bolster your vocabulary and your ability to identify said vocabulary buried within a bed of other vocabulary/prefixes/suffixes.

What is your favorite long German word that you’ve mastered?